The industry guide unfolds

So, my professional exam is a little over a week away - clearly the best thing to do is to start structuring a production guide, right? :)

Someone posted a comment on something I said on our forums in response to a very broad career path for a producer I posted that suggested there might be a use for a guide along those lines in the guides section of our forums.

Everyone seems to focus on the "you need this skill to do this" bit etc, without focusing on the "if you are looking into getting into production, this is how you might go about it and this is how to get deeper into it..." side of things. It is all well and good to have a list of skills needed to do tech 2 invention but when those skills are going to take you months to train and an astronomical (to a beginning player) amount of isk, you'd be forgiven for sitting there thinking "Well, I'll never achieve that and what's it worth to me when I do?"

The fact is that the production side of EVE isn't all that time intensive. It is very asset intensive and you do need a reasonable number of skills if you intend to get into research and invention. However you basically set a job going, wait for it to complete, collect the good and sell it. Easy, right?

Well, I'd probably argue that if you are going to get into production for profit, you need to research your goods, diversify your offering and be prepared to make 10%-30% on good production deals. Your real isk-maker may well be what you do while you aren't tending production jobs, which could be mission running, mining, trading, ratting... you get the idea.

The production side of EVE is fun to explore. There is something fun about building stuff, producing and marketing goods and doing the research needed to turn a profit. I intend my guide to set out a path to delve into production and highlight the obvious skills and facts along the way.

So, what's the plan?

Well, I was thinking of thinking of production as a career path. Something along the lines of:

• Starting production - personal ammo and those first few steps into production for profit
• Building up a BPO portfolio and production skills, diversifying your options
• Stepping out into research and setting up a research POS
• Getting into Invention

The guide should cover tactics of choosing products, choices you might make, with insets covering details of the skills and information on the anatomy of a blueprint etc.

I want the career path to be the driving force behind the guide and to hang the essential production facts onto it.

Anyway, thoughts and suggestions are welcome - please post comments of anything you'd like covered or what you think of my idea.

I am sure I'll post clippits and more info on my blog. I intend to take my time producing it and will no doubt rope people in to proof-read it. I remember doing something along those lines for Dee Carson when he was writing his mining guide so perhaps I'll see if he would mind returning the favour. (Dee, you have been warned! *grin*)

Until then, EVE University is at war, so good luck to all fighting.

All the best

Fin

An old grizzled grumpy EVE veteran

I realised recently that I need to readjust my approach to the EVE University forums. Why? Well, I'll explain.

I have been making posts quite frequently (still pretty inactive in-game but enjoying the social aspect of the forums) aiming to be helpful and to provide information. I stand by everything I have posted but I realised that recently these have tended to focus more on the problems with other people's ideas.

I need to be much more positive. I ought to be posting helpful suggestions and encouraging people to explore the game I have enjoyed so much for the last 5 years. The thing that attracted me to EVE, and has kept me in its thrall, is the massive sandbox to sit and play in.

So, that's my resolution going forwards. To continue to get the information and views I hold across but to do so in a positive manner so I stop sounding like I am talking from the point of view of someone who has been there and done it all. I have been there and done everything I wanted to and do have a lot to share, but it is by no means all there is to know.

I am also thinking of writing a guide to production. It'll have to be after my exams but I'd like to do a guide that contains the usual "this is a blueprint", "these are the skills" but as sidenotes while it explains how to get into production. What to look for in terms of goods for sale, how your skills might progress and how you might go about building up a production side to your character. basically, something that isn't quite as dry and factual as I have seen to date.

Anyway, something to work on. :)

Fin

Kassie was right

So - long time since I last posted and let's just say that Kassie was right - you never really leave EVE University. :)

I am back in the corp after a few months break when I ran my own small manufacturing corporation.

I am currently taking a break from the game - it has been hard to be totally inactive (and I haven't managed yet, although a week's absence etc is probably going to be the norm) - I get on well with the people and it is nice to drop by a chat and help out a bit. I am not actively playing the game but the big shiny chat client and the community are harder to put down. Current skill plan is very long skills for a bit.

I think my first blog back ought to look at what I have done.

I decided in the end to try manufacturing. I restarted M.A.D. and with a pile of blueprints I have (I tend to be a bit of a collector in games and have 450 or so blueprint originals) I set about doing some copies and selling tech 1 goods.

The first thing that struck me was how much profit could be made from selling tech 1 goods. It isn't as profitable as trading but with careful stock selection I was able to make roughly 10% profit above the cost I could sell the minerals for by putting them up on sell orders (not fulfilling existing buy orders). Some items sold better than other and a wide spread of goods with some ships and cruisers (I built one battecruiser but otherwise stuck to smaller stuff) kept the isk rolling in. It was only a small operation and I bought all my minerals but it was turning 30-50mil profit per week. Which isn't bad for something that doesn't require much work and I wasn't building intensively.

I've always wanted to get into invention to see what it was like. I see it as a nice progression on the career path of a producer:

• you start off with a few blueprints and PE4, doing small bits of ammo and perhaps a cruiser or two
• you build up your blueprint collection and get PE trained to 5 and other skills, such as mass production trained, and train the research skills
• you set up a POS to research your own blueprints, training up the research skills, expanding the blueprint collection further
• you use the POS to make copies and use those in invention, starting to produce tech 2 goods

All the time, a producer will be mining or running missions, as production is very much a side-career I think.

So, I got into invention. I started off with modules as they have a higher success rate, the BPCs are easier to get hold of and they are actually more profitable.

My first success was an Invuln II BPC. There is something fun about Invention with it's chance of success. I went on to cover a wide range of caldari Tech 2 goods and it increased my income nicely.

The approach to producing Tech 2 modules is the same as for Tech 1 really - pick the items well to guarantee a profit, have a wide range of goods to get a good volume of sales and don't forget to build in your invention costs into the pricing!

I made perhaps 20-30% on average build profit on tech 2 modules and they helped solve the problem you face with tech 1, where it is the turnover of sales rather than the profit margin that limits earning capacity. Tech 2 modules sell for higher values and further diversify your market to those interested in tech 2 and not tech 1 goods. I was making perhaps 200mil per week with minimal activity.

I did try ships - I got luck and got 2 10-run Onyx BPCs and a 10-run Cerberus BPC. However ship profit is not great - perhaps 10% to 20% and you need something like 20 days to build 10 Onyx for something like a 150mil profit (ie not great). For a small operation like mine it wouldn;t have been an option. For a larger more intensive operation, they'd further add to the capacity to generate return.

So - that was me and production. I enjoyed it and am glad I tried it.

Why did I rejoin EVE Uni?

Well, I had experienced invention and it was curiosity more than anything that led me into it, not the isk. (I don't have a lot of cash in my wallet - perhaps just shy of 1bil isk- but then I don't play for isk and, if I did, I would be trading.) Real life has been hellishly busy with work running riot so I decided a break was called for and after loggin on occassionaly to skill train, I decided I missed my old corpmates and would rather have people to chat to when I was on.

Will I come back to active play?

Not sure yet. For now, I am pretty active on EVE University's forums during lunch hours and when I need a break from the evening slog.

I don't think I will ever really escape EVE Uni (I even bought an IVY League t-shirt designed by Kel as the picture shows) but then the people there are good friends and make the game special in so many ways.

I'll no doubt post more musings in the next few days and will try and make this more frequent.

Fin

New beginnings

So, I decided to leave EVE University.

It was a tough decision and I will miss the friends I have there but it was time for me to go. I had a number of reasons for leaving:

• I needed some time off from being a director of such an active corp
• There was increasing friction among the directorship that I don't want to deal with
• My real life workload has been increasing and I needed to reduce my required involvement with the game
• I wanted to try something new

So, what am I going to do? Well, I've not decided properly as yet.

The first step has involved reactivating M.A.D. (an old corp of mine that stands for Muppets Armored Division) - and setting up a POS for myself. I've been shopping and have been buying a few (about 100) new blueprints to research to add to my collection.

The current plans are:

• To research these blueprints
• Possibly to go into BPC production. I'll probably sell blueprint sets (ie Heavy Missile sets etc) in the near future
• I might offer research services and copy services to cover fuel costs after a while
• I am also going to look at getting into Invention
• I want to try some exploration

I'll need a few more skills and some new training (I recently hit 60mil skillpoints - yay).

Time to relax and explore some avenues, I guess.

Fin

My current EVE plans

I recently (yesterday) achieved a long term goal in EVE when I got my first capital ship.

Having taken the plunge and buying the skills and ship - I was reminded today of how much fun it is to get into a new ship and fit it for the first time. Long term goals and targets are good and without these the game goes stale.

I can't figure out what to do next. I am only skill training at the moment so I guess any immediate targets need to be skill related. Those who know me will know I am Caldari/Gallente specialised and I am tempted to cross-train for Minmatar ships. I'd quite like to see what a Vagabond is like. >:)

Longer term, I have to confess that I am struggling. I've run my own corporation, done missions, mined, produced, run a POS and been to 0.0. Any suggestions are gratefully received.

In the meantime, I have skills to improve/train and chat channels to haunt. Oh, and a minmatar alt to get skilled up (starting from scratch and not transferring any isk to her, I am really enjoying that challenge and have been ratting in 0.3 with a thrasher recently, which is great fun!)

You can't have my stuff yet. :)

All the best

Fin

This is madness...we're doomed

Looks like a few of the EVE University directors have started regular blogs. Well, I am always one to follow the crowd so I figured I'd start my own too.

First off, please don't expect all too regular updates and also go easy on me as this is my first ever blog!

I am currently taking a break from EVE. Taking a break has turned into a lot of sitting in station whenever I get bored around the flat irl and chatting with the corp and directors. I've also been following events on the forums and sticking my oar in on directors forums where it comes to discussions on policy.

I hope that the membership see all these blogs as good step forwards. I know that I, personally, am stung when I read comments about aloof directors and snotty older players. I try my best to answer questions I feel that I can in corp chat and to pass information on. However I sometimes don't think people realise how much goes into running EVE Uni and how much time the directors, recruiters, instructors actually put into helping everyone out.

From personal experience, when I give a class, I spend an hour beforehand thinking about what I am going to cover and planning it, then I usually spend an hour or so on the class, plus a couple of hours afterwards editting the mp3 if I am uploading one. That's time well spent, in my opinion, and time that I hope benefits people. I enjoy it, so that's why I do it. Every positive comment I have had back as a result is appreciated and I know all the other instructors feel the same.

In terms of the directorship though, I can easily log on and spend three hours "discussing" with the other directors over an issue - on teamspeak, in chat channel or via forum posts - and at the end of it all, there is nothing to show for it. Someone like Kassie, who is chief director, spends an inordinate amount of time running and organising things. The membership often never hears of the time spent in making decisions as to whether we should or shouldn't take a specific action as a corp - they sometimes see the action itself if it goes ahead but for every decision ratified, there are two or three that pass by the wayside. Can we pass this on to the membership...well, not always no.

I'll give you an example. Let's consider the BoB conflict in it's infancy. It's a conflict that we haven't got involved in and we wouldn't get involved in - we are neutral and proud of that stance in the EVE universe and benefit from that standpoint as a teaching institution - but do you think we didn't discuss the issue in great detail? Obviously we did and that took a lot of time and heated debate. However we can never pass the details of that debate to the studentship as our decisions result in external policy and that's what we want the outside EVE community to see - that's what they must see.

I'll quote myself from an internal directors thread:

"With over 1,000 characters in corp, you are talking of making decisions that affect hundreds of people's gameplay…a sobering thought that I think every director ought to have at least once a week if they really want to do their roles proud!"

I think we do manage to do this, on the whole.

I guess what I am trying to say to those members of EVE University who read this is - please try and understand that we are really attempting to do our best and we are spending a lot of time to get things working and to nudge the uni in the right direction. As Silentbrick has said in his blog, the directors won't be posting inside secrets for you all to see in our blogs. What I hope we will be posting is our thoughts on the game and sharing our hopes for EVE University and for our own EVE experience.

I feel proud to be a director at EVE University. I feel it is an honour and privilege and - even though I am trying my best to take a break - it's a duty I wouldn't take lightly.

Fin